Here are four things I did not expect to happen to me on Wednesday August 13: 

1) Waking up next to Scarlett Johansson 
2) Bowling 300 with an Ikea bag over my head 
3) Finding a bassoon in my eye 
4) Getting invited to be on the Dr. Oz Show to talk about a weed killer. 

The first three are admittedly unlikely, but the fourth really struck me as especially odd.

Why on earth would Dr. Oz want to talk to me? It's not like we travel in the same socioeconomic circles. He has a 400 room mansion with an unobstructed view of lower Manhattan, while I live in a refrigerator crate under the FDR Drive. I doubt we've ever been invited to the same party. 

By Patrik Jones, Imperial College London

Converting renewable energy into electricity is one thing; converting it into fuel is quite another. The vast majority of global energy demand is for fuel, and a renewable source could help us heat our houses and travel efficiently long into the future. It might even mean we could avoid the conflicts that will arise while competing for the last remaining fossil fuels.

Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards. CC BY-SA 2.0

By Emma Rees, University of Chester

Researchers have engineered the bacteria E. coli to generate renewable propane, which would open a path to a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels.

Propane is an appealing source of cleaner fuel because it has an existing global market. It is already produced as a by-product during natural gas processing and petroleum refining, but both are finite resources. In its current form it makes up the bulk of LPG (liquid petroleum gas), which is used in many applications, from central heating to camping stoves and conventional motor vehicles.

Though to Western women, Muslim women in the Mid-East and Asia seem oppressed because they have no choice in wearing a hijab, the Islamic head- and body-cover common in Muslim culture, studies have shown that Muslim women have a more positive body image.

Psychologists using a wider range of body image measures have found that British Muslim women who wear a hijab generally have more positive body image, are less reliant on media messages about beauty ideals, and place less importance on appearance than those who do not wear a hijab. These effects appear to be driven by use of a hijab specifically, rather than religiosity. 

It has generally been believed that more attractive men had better semen quality.

Bamboo can also be a tasty snack. Credit: Chris Ison/PA

By Dirk Hebel, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Bamboo, a common grass which can be harder to pull apart than steel, has the potential to revolutionize building construction throughout the world. But that’s not all. As a raw material found predominantly in the developing world, without a pre-existing industrial infrastructure built to skew things towards the rich world, bamboo has the potential to completely shift international economic relations.

It's the home stretch of the professional baseball season and that means players are more likely to be tired or sustain an injury. New research suggests that a stronger core might help.

In the study, 347 pitchers were assessed for lumbopelvic control during spring training. Pitchers with more tilt in their pelvis as they raised a leg to step up were up to three times more likely to miss at least 30 days – cumulative, not consecutive – during the season than were pitchers who showed minimal tilt in their pelvis.  They found that professional baseball pitchers with poor core stability are more likely to miss 30 or more days in a single season because of injury than are pitchers who have good control of muscles in their lower back and pelvis. 

Human breast milk is nutrition for infants but it also contains a large number of bacterial species, including some opportunistic pathogens of humans. 

A simple solution to a persistent problem. Credit: Ashok A. Kumar

By Ashok A. Kumar, Harvard University

Every year, 300,000 children are born with sickle-cell disease, primarily in Africa and India.

It is a genetic disorder that causes some blood cells to become abnormally shaped. The result is that those who suffer from it have a shorter lifespan.